Rotary screen printing presses utilizing a rotary screen unit have heretofore been known as high-speed printing apparatuses for printing objects made from a wide range of materials such as cloth and paper. The rotary screen printing presses employ a printing method involving pushing ink with a squeegee through through-holes formed in the plate surface of a screen plate formed in a cylindrical shape to transfer the forced ink onto a printing object.
In general, in such a rotary screen printing press, the squeegee includes a squeegee body (blade) configured to push ink, and a support (squeegee bar) supporting the blade. To mount the squeegee on the rotary screen printing press, the squeegee is positioned inside a rotary screen, and opposite end portions of the squeegee bar are fixed to squeegee supporting means. Note that the rotary screen refers to a screen plate formed in a cylindrical shape and having end rings attached to the opposite ends thereof as supporting members.
There has been known a structure in which a conventional rotary screen printing press as described above includes screen-plate supporting means for supporting a rotary screen in such a way that the rotary screen can be engaged with and disengaged from an impression cylinder, and squeegee supporting means for supporting the opposite ends of a squeegee bar in such a way that a blade can be engaged with and disengaged from the inner peripheral surface of the rotary screen (see Patent Literature 1, for example).
Moreover, there has been known a technique for a screen printing press using a flat screen plate to perform screen printing, in which the angle of the squeegee is adjusted based on printing conditions such as the viscosity of the ink, the diameter of the print pattern holes, and the pitch of the holes (see Patent Literature 2, for example).